


UNTIL THE SUN RISES

by glitterfucked



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/F, Female WWII Soldier, Ficlet, OOC, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter: The REAL First Avenger, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Sad Ending, World War II, if you squint really hard - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5056426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterfucked/pseuds/glitterfucked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angie Martinelli is working as a nurse during World War II when she encounters a soldier she will never forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	UNTIL THE SUN RISES

It was late in the evening in the hastily set up makeshift "hospital". Some of the less wounded and on-the-mend soldiers milled about, talking and laughing, for spirits were high. They would mostly all be going home soon. The war would end for them, if only for a moment.

A fair looking nurse with light brown hair hastily tied into a modest bun and full red cheeks scurried through the forlorn tents, arms wrapped around a fat cloth bag, eyes cast downward nervously. She dodged any oncoming soldier, for the men with their uncouth tongues and rough ways frightened her, and rightfully so. She'd heard some horror stories about what soldiers who hadn't interacted with a woman in some time were like, and she was not interested in finding out if they were true, not that night.

The tent she arrived at was small and unassuming like the others, but unlike the others, contained only one soldier. This one seemed young, and rarely spoke to anyone according to those who had carried him in. The others seemed wary of him, and left in a hurry. She dropped her load of dirty hospital linens outside the tent and coughed before entering. The soldier was lying on his side, facing the entrance. The nurse was struck then, by how young and soft he looked. He had no facial hair to speak of, and his features were smooth and rounded. He was mostly covered by another dirty set of linens she was meant to change, though she'd run out of fresh ones to trade in halfway through her run. She knelt down before him and touched her hand to his forehead.

"Are you alright? You look ill, sir," the nurse said softly. The soldier looked at her blearily, as though he had just realized she was there.

"C-Carter," the soldier stutters.

"Pardon?"

"My name," he says. He had an accent, and his voice was soft and childish, though rough with pain, like he was still yet a boy. Her heart broke for him immediately.

"Evening, Mr. Carter," she greeted him gently. "How are you feeling?"

"Like hell, to be frank," he joked weakly. Angie smiled, but it didn't quite look right on her haggard features.

"May I help?"

The soldier closed his eyes, visibly pained. Finally, he shook his head, indicating that no, there was nothing Angie could do.

"At least let me look?" Angie implored. Again, the soldier refused. She began to get anxious. Was it so bad? So frighteningly grotesque a wound? She stood and made to leave.

"I'll have to bring you fresh linens another day. I'm just checking in." Carter nodded weakly. "I'll be back tomorrow," Angie assured. She found herself, oddly enough, magnetized to the soft soldier boy.

•••

The next evening, Angie made her rounds again, assuring all the men she would see about getting fresh linens for them again, though privately she knew there just wasn't enough to go around. When she got to Carter's tent, she found him asleep and sweating feverishly. 

Worried, she quietly tugged his shirt open to examine his wound, against his wishes, she knew. She bit her lip. He had several dirty bandages wrapped around his chest, and fresh blood was seeping through and mixing with the old.

She tugged off the wrappings, layer after layer.

And she was shocked, not by his immodest form, but by _hers_.

The soldier's skin prickled in the cold air and he--she?--they stir. Angie quickly cleaned their relatively minor wound, which had unfortunately become infected due to neglect. She didn't wrap it again, thinking the wrap too filthy, but covered their body gingerly with a sheet.

She sat in the corner and waited for the soldier to stir or die.

•••

When the soldier woke, Angie had just been dozing off. Their eyes opened slowly, but they looked less feverish. Angie noted their state and sat up, immediately curious.

"Are you a woman?" she asked quickly. Carter--if that is their real name--looked up at the ceiling, ashamed.

"And if I am?" Carter finally said, defeated. Angie swallowed. They sat in painful silence, the only sound was that of Carter's labored breathing.

"Is Carter your real name?" Angie asked finally. She smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt.

Peggy smiled ruefully and answers, "Peggy Carter." Angie thought then it was the prettiest name she'd ever heard in her short life. She crawled, skirts hiked up, to sit on her knees directly next to Peggy. She asked, "What are you doing here?" but Peggy didn't answer. She merely closed her eyes and sighed, the breaths ragged.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Peggy retorted, but by then it was too late to have any bite behind it. Angie shrugged, nonplussed.

"Trying to help, I thought."

Angie's face was so devoid of color, Peggy could only snort in response. It was at once brutally honest and terribly self aware.

•••

Evening passed softly into velvet dusk.

"I'm dying," Peggy abruptly interrupted the silence. "Aren't I?" Angie looked away, guilty.

"You wouldn't let me look at you," Angie started. Peggy's face screwed up tight, and Angie thought she may have had tears forming in her eyes. "Your chest wound has metal in it. It's... pretty bad infected. I don't know..."

But Angie did know.

By now, the full moon was fat and heavy in the sky, and Angie could see its light through the tent entrance. Peggy was terribly lovely in the moonlight, even sweating and dirty as she was. Angie imagined, in another life, she could have had any fella.

Any dame.

"I'll stay with you," Angie promised. "Until the sun rises."

Both knew there would be no sunrise for Peggy, but Peggy was grateful nonetheless.

•••

"When I'm gone, don't tell them my name, please."

Angie nodded, eyes welling up with sparkling fat tears.

"I won't," she promised, again. Her voice broke, and her lips quivered, but her word was good. The sky had begun to lighten. 

Dawn was approaching.

Angie watched Peggy for a moment, deciding. Finally, she curled up next to her on the ground, and buried her tears in a dirty linen sheet.

"Why?" she choked out, less at Peggy and more at the awful unfairness of everything.

Peggy smiled wanly.

"Because I had someone to avenge."

The sun had just begun to creep over the horizon, and the only sounds were of Peggy's labored breathing and Angie's soft crying.

"Thank you," Peggy wheezed feverishly. "For staying with me."

Angie nodded her wet face against Peggy's shoulder.

•••

As Angie clutched Peggy's too-warm, too-still body to her, sunshine slipped into the tent and illuminated Peggy's lovely chestnut hair, shorn short and jagged, but still too beautiful.

Angie felt Peggy go still against her at some point in the endless dawn, but could not bring herself to get up.

She would not until the body grew cold and rigid.

 

Hours would pass before Angie Martinelli would realize she never told Peggy Carter her name.


End file.
